


Coffee Can Fix That

by taylor_tut



Series: Whump Bingo [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Hiding Medical Issues, Hurt Tony, Injury, Peter is a good son, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Self-Sacrificing Tony Stark, Tony Being Tony, injured Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-24 23:19:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14365854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: Another fic from the whump bingo on my tumblr! Tony gets hit in a battle while Peter is supposed to be looking out for him, but he hides the injury, not wanting Peter to find out and feel guilty. That works well: until it gets infected.





	Coffee Can Fix That

Tony hadn’t wanted the kid to know that he’d been injured from his lack of cover. It hadn’t been Peter’s fault, really--he was just trying to get the hang of this hero thing; they’d all had an adjustment period, and he was just a teenager. He shouldn’t have to deal with guilt on top of the stress of protecting the city.

So when a hit from a drone that Peter was supposed to fend off had pierced Tony’s armor, he’d be damned if he’d say anything about it. He’d heal. These things happened, after all, and he’d told Peter to watch his blind spots, so that was enough. 

Well, it was enough until the wound got infected, that is.

He'd silenced warnings about his high temperature and low blood pressure one too many times. It really hadn't occurred to Tony that the alert system he’d set up in Peter’s suit to ensure Peter couldn’t get hit without him knowing would work both ways, but apparently, much to his dismay, it did.

"Peter?" KAren asked, ever-politely, in Peter's ear as he made his rounds through the city. She seemed almost... nervous? Entirely too nervous for an AI.

"Peter, I must request that you report to Stark Tower immediately--it's urgent." 

Peter swallowed a lump of anxiety that had formed in his throat. If Tony was calling a meeting without Pepper putting it in everyone's calendar first, it must be serious. He forewent the rest of his rounds and headed straight for Stark Tower.

As soon as he walked into Tony’s workshop, he could feel that something was off. Tony was standing in jeans and a t-shirt in front of a near-empty pot of coffee, looking decidedly like he had NOT called a meeting. 

"Uh, Mr. Stark?" Peter asked, and Tony positively jumped--something he should not be doing if he were expecting company. 

"What the hell are you doing here, kid?" Tony growled. Abort, abort, bad idea. He was in the Stark Tower without permission, and Tony was NOT happy about it.

"I'm--uh, I'm sorry, I just--I was told--I'll go," he floundered. Instead of ushering him out the door, Tony sighed and took his cup of coffee off the counter and toward the elevator.

"Nah," he said simply, "you're already here, stay. I could use a hand." Was that why Karen had called him here? To help on an invention? Why wouldn't she tell Tony?

As if to answer his question, FRIDAY spoke up, sounding almost peeved. "I must advise again against continuing your work in the lab," she announced. "Please allow Mr. Parker to look over--"

Tony cut her off with a hiss. "Enough," he curtailed, "Kid. Come with me." But Peter was no dummy--practically a genius, Aunt May would argue. 

"Just let me change out of the suit," he stalled, sneaking off to the bathroom when Tony nodded. "FRIDAY, what's going on? Why did you call me? It doesn't seem like Tony wants me here."

If disembodied computer systems could frown, FRIDAY would have. "I am allowed to override Mr. Stark’s commands in favor of his well being should his mental faculties be impaired,” she explained cryptically. 

“Impaired how?”

She hesitated. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say anything more,” she said. Slightly disappointed and more than a little confused, Peter took off the Spidey suit and folded it neatly, exchanging it for his street clothes from his backpack before making his way downstairs to the workshop.

Tony was sitting in a chair staring at several screens. Each time he reached up to scroll through the touch interface, one side of his mouth tugged downward into a grimace, and his posture was far too stiff. His other hand never let go of the coffee he was sipping, even despite the several discarded paper coffee cups littering the floor near his trash can and the slight tremor of his hands.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asked quietly, “what did you want me to look at?”

“Ah, right,” Tony said, tugging at the collar of his worn t-shirt, “geez, ’s hot down here. Uh, okay, you were asking--sorry, flight of ideas, here,” he said cooly, “did I say what I wanted you to look at when I called you?”

Now, Peter was really starting to worry. “You, erm, didn’t call me,” he reminded. “FRIDAY said that you needed help.” 

Tony frowned at the screen. “Oh, ‘course,” he shook his head to clear the fog from it, “gotcha. Hm. How ‘bout you hand me that ‘lil guy,” he instructed, pointing at a small, dead-looking bot on the table. “I wanna put a program in ‘im.”

Cautiously, Peter held the bot out to Tony, who reached for it absently. The next thing Peter knew, Tony was yelping in pain and his coffee cup had dropped to the floor and shattered. 

“Mr. Stark?!” Peter screeched, “oh my God, are you--what’s wrong? FRIDAY?” Tony’s face was sweaty and his eyes had gone glassy from the pain, but he’d gotten himself under control a bit more now. 

“I’m fine, kid,” he denied, “just moved wrong. Little pulled muscle, little tired. Nothing some coffee can’t fix.” 

Peter chewed the inside of his cheek. “Maybe you should lay off the caffeine a bit?” he suggested. Is this why FRIDAY had called him? Because Tony was being stubborn about an injury? It was something he’d heard rumors about from the other Avengers, but he hadn’t given them much merit, since Tony seemed to have to have no trouble whining whenever he got a scuff in the suit or was hungry or otherwise minorly inconvenienced. 

“Funny, I don’t remember dying and leaving you in charge of Stark Industries,” Tony bit, his usual mirth this time undermined with clear pain. 

Peter wasn’t going to let him deflect. Partly because Tony was terrible at it.

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter rolled his eyes, “you’re dodging.”

Tony glaredl. “I’m not,” he denied. “I told you, I pulled a muscle.”

When Tony allowed his hand to leave his side, Peter’s eyes widened at the blood and other fluids seeping from his side and through his shirt. 

“Holy--that’s not a pulled muscle!” Peter accused, taking advantage of the moment that it took Tony’s fevered mind to catch up and using it to pull up his shirt on the one side. A gaping wound, half-healed and severely infected, decorated his ribcage, complete with black and purple bruising and smaller but no-less-infected scrapes. 

“Pete, boundaries,” Tony snapped, Peter ignored him, forcing Tony to sit on the floor where he could get a better look at the wound in the light. 

“Is this… when did this happen?” Peter asked. “We haven’t had a battle since the one last week, and I was with you the whole time. I didn’t see you get hit.” 

Tony looked pointedly away. 

“But… you did get hit, didn’t you?”

Silence.

“Mr. Stark! Why wouldn’t you say anything? How can I have your back if you don’t tell me--oh my God. I was… I was supposed to have your back.”

“Pete,” Tony snapped, “no. This is why I didn’t say anything. Slip-ups happen, and it wasn’t your fault. I knew you’d beat yourself up.”

“So you just let it fester?!”

Tony grimaced. “Yeah, I’m a little too nauseated for you to use that word,” he said, placing a hand over his mouth and breathing deeply for a scary second before continuing. “You’re learning, kid. I don’t want you to be discouraged by something stupid and little.”

“This is a serious injury,” Peter corrected. “Plus, it looks super infected--FRIDAY?”

“Scans indicate an elevated temperature and low blood pressure consistent with an infection, yes,” she replied. 

“Doctor,” Tony nodded toward Peter, “doctor.” 

Peter rolled his eyes. “Come on, Mr. Stark; you need to get up off the floor so I can call someone to come help.” 

Peter hauled Tony to his feet, where he was unsteady for a moment, and Peter almost buckled under his weight and sent both of them tumbling onto the floor. “You’re heavy,” he gritted out through a clenched jaw, “I might need to put the suit back on just to get you to the couch.”

“Very cute,” Tony snarked, “you know, when puberty hits, those muscles are really gonna tone up.”

“Hey! I can drop you, you know,” he warned. Tony was reluctantly obedient all the way to the other side of the room where Peter settled him in on the couch.

Tony was shivering. 

“Do you want a blanket or something?’ Peter asked awkwardly. “Where do you even keep them?”

Tony shook his head. “Hot drink should warm me right up,” Tony said tiredly, “how’s about you bring me my coffee?”

“You dropped it,” Peter dismissed, not looking up from his phone as he searched for Steve Rogers’ number. “Besides I think you’ve had enough for today--oh, Captain Rogers!” Peter broke off mid-sentence, taking the conversation out of the workshop so he could talk without Tony interrupting. A few minutes later, he came back with a blanket and a water bottle.

“Captain Rogers is on his way over,” Peter said, draping the blanket over the still-shivering Tony. “Drink this; you’re dehydrated.”

“You’re bossy.” Tony took a closer look at the blanket and frowned. “This is from my bed--were you in my room?”

Peter shrugged. “FRIDAY said--”

“I’m going to put her program into a toaster,” he muttered.

“Be nice,” Peter scolded. “She was just trying to help. Which you clearly need, because your temperature is…”

“102.7,” FRIDAY supplied helpfully. 

Tony cursed. “I didn’t know it’d gotten that bad,” he muttered. “Shit, yeah, you’re right. That’s not good for the arc reactor.”

“So you’ll let me and Captain Rogers take care of you?” 

“Ugh,” Tony groaned, “don’t say it like you’re going to be my nursemaids unless you’re getting Steve a candy-striper miniskirt.”

“Yeah, they don’t really do that anymore,” Peter chastised, “but nice try.” 

“Boo,” Tony pouted, “I never get anything fun.”

“You know, if you actually took care of yourself for once, I bet Captain Rogers would be so happy that he wouldn’t be above dressing in a cheerleader outfit to celebrate your incredible, once-in-a-lifetime achievement,” Peter smirked. 

Tony raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been spending too much time with the Ice Cap,” he said.

“You’re just mad ‘cause we’re right,” Peter accused. “I’m going to go back upstairs and look for whatever he’s going to need to clean off that wound. That is, if you’re lucky and don’t need to go to the hospital.”

Tony waved him off with a flourish of his hand. “Do as you must,” he caved. “I’ll be here, confined to my prison.”

Peter tucked the blankets in around his arms even tighter. “You’d better,” he warned. “I’ll see you in a few, Mr. Stark. Try to get some rest.”

Tony only stayed awake for as long as it took for Peter to leave the room, then fell into a feverish sleep. 


End file.
